


red scale gleam

by screechfox



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, Implied Human Eating, POV Second Person, Sirens, Vague Mind Control, implied gore, prize to anyone who can guess who the siren is meant to be
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-17
Updated: 2017-09-17
Packaged: 2018-12-31 00:24:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12120549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/screechfox/pseuds/screechfox
Summary: A sailor awakes in their rowing boat, out at sea. They're not alone, which should be more concerning than the 'stranded' part. It isn't, for some reason.





	red scale gleam

**Author's Note:**

> originally started as a side-piece to an AU that me and a friend were chatting about. that was like a year ago, but i've wanted to finish it since then. i hope i've done it justice.
> 
> the reason i haven't posted in months is because i had a super-long school holiday. and, as we all know, the biggest killer to motivation is having the free time to actually use it.
> 
> (like i said, prize to anyone who can guess who the siren is meant to be.)

He is shirtless, and stretching. His joints crack unpleasantly with the movement, but it doesn’t cancel out how enthralling he is to look at - pale, pale skin almost glittering in the moonlight.

There are three lines curving around each side of his torso. For a moment, you think that they’re tattoos, or scars; something relatively normal marking his skin, making him seem less distant. And then he inhales, as the wind rushes over the waves, and the lines flutter, as if trying to suck something into them.

Your rowing boat is mostly the same as you remember it, from before the gentle rocking and calm darkness of the midnight sea lulled you to sleep. The one difference (aside from the enticing stranger) is a water-damaged guitar settled at the end of your boat as though it’s been there all along.

You sit up, and your blanket falls off you. The man (more than a man, maybe), turns around to face you. He cocks his head, and grins widely. His teeth are like pearls, a contrast to the pitch-dark void of his eyes.

“You’re awake!” His voice is like a mixture of the sweetest sugar and the blackest oil, but the tone of his exclamation reminds you more of a child. He slips off the edge of the boat and into the seat in front of you, and you realise that he’d been balancing with his feet in the ocean water. 

His hands and feet are webbed, and he’s fidgeting with his sharp-nailed fingers constantly.

“You’re okay, right?” He cocks his head the other way, in a way that reminds you more of an owl than anything else, and makes a contemplative sound. “Not dying, or anything?”

“Are you going to eat me?” you ask, rather than answer his question. Your tone is skeptical, but  honestly, looking at that wide grin - with two rows of perfect, slightly too sharp teeth - you’re not sure you’d find it in your heart to mind.

He shrugs, though the movement seems alien on his form now, as you catalogue every subtle difference between you and him.

“Dunno,” he says, gaze flicking out across the endless ocean for a moment. “Maybe. We’ll see.”

His tongue flicks out to wet his lips as quiet falls, just for a second. You don’t really know how to respond, so you content yourself with staring. 

He seems to grow bored of meeting your gaze after a few moments, and begins to inspect one of your oars with fascination. He picks it up and turns it over in his hands, running his nails through the grooves in the wood.

He looks up at you again, expression quizzical. “What’s this?”

“It’s- it’s an oar,” you say, blinking at him. His confusion doesn’t clear. “They’re how I got my boat out here.” You gesture at the other oar, which lies discarded in the bottom of the boat. 

“Oh,” he says, in a tone of voice that suggests he’s humouring you. “I  _ guess  _ that makes sense.”

A smile plays at the edge of his lips again, and he tosses the oar to you. You barely manage to catch it before he picks up the other and holds that one out to you too. He smiles a shark’s smile at you, and you feel your heart skip a beat.

“Go on then,” he says, with a child’s imperiousness. “Show me how.”

Swallowing, you take the offered oar. You can’t tell if you’re nervous or fascinated, or some odd mixture of both. For a moment, the only sound you can hear is the waves. Then you take a deep breath, and start rowing.

The exertion helps ground you slightly. You move forwards then backwards, forwards then backwards; you breathe in then out, in then out. All the while, the unearthly creature on your boat sprawls across the planks, watching you with dark eyes and a grin like a knife’s edge.

If he is to be your death, you can’t necessarily say you mind much. 

You just hope that you’re rowing in the right direction, and not stranding yourself further. You would like to die as close to home as possible.

“This is how you do it, then,” he says. It’s been a while of nothing but the rhythm of your breathing, and the waves. “It’s not exactly glamorous, is it?”

You pause for a moment, staring down at the planks beneath you.

“It’s not glamorous, but it’s all we’ve got,” you murmur, catching your breath. 

As you look up, you catch sight of light on the horizon. For a moment you think that it’s just your eyes playing tricks, but as you focus, you break into a smile. It sits softly on you as you turn to the man in your boat.

“There’s a lighthouse over there! It’s the shoreline, probably even...” You trail off as his expression turns speculative, as he turns to look at the light. It’s far away, but you can see the glint of it in his eyes. 

“Even?” he prompts, turning back to you. There’s something in his expression that you can’t read, though you try.

“Even home,” you say quietly, thinking of your family.

His expression shifts - for a moment only, but you catch it. For a moment, he looks more sorrowful than you’ve ever seen anyone look, even when the storms come and half of the fishermen in the village die.

As the it clears, he wears that knife-sharp smile again. You’re sure that, if you tried, you could cut yourself on it. Then again, you just might, soon.

“Are you going to eat me?” you ask again, though you already know the answer. His teeth gleam in the moonlight.

“I’m afraid so,” he says, and sounds a little like he means it. “I’m sorry, and all that.”

Surprising yourself, you laugh. Okay, it’s more of a splutter, and the uncharitable could easily view it as a cough, but you’ve decided that it’s a laugh. A slightly hysterical laugh.

“Sorry? You’re about to eat me, and you’re saying  _ sorry _ ?” Nothing slightly about your hysteria at all, it seems.

“Well, it’s only polite,” he says, standing up. The boat wobbles precariously - a part of you wonders at you worrying about the boat over yourself. “I can’t exactly say it  _ after _ you’re dead, can I?”

(It’s certainly a fair point.)

You hold an oar in front of you as the boat steadies. The attempt at self-defence is more to reassure yourself that you’re not just trotting to your death, than anything else. It’s a feeble reassurance at that - your arm trembles, your energy spent.

His smile turns almost kind as he takes a step forward. It isn’t kind, though, not really - the darkness of his eyes only intensifies.

Gently, he pushes the oar down, and takes a hold of your chin. You feel his sharp nails digging in slightly, not hard enough to hurt.

“I really  _ am _ sorry, though. I want to try something new for a while, but… I need you. I need your life for my life.”

“Why me?” He takes another step closer.

“Wrong place at the wrong time, I guess.” He shrugs with one shoulder, as though it’s just life. Maybe it is. His grip shifts to the back of your neck, like a mother cat’s grip on a kitten. 

You keep your breathing steady, staring into his eyes. They’re only void, now. If there’s any difference between his pupils and his irises, you certainly can’t see it.

“I do promise you one thing, though,” he says, expression turning sad again. “It won’t hurt. I swear to you, it won’t hurt.”

That’s the last thing you hear before he throws you into the water and dives in after you. 

His claws rip your flesh, and you have one last conscious thought before everything goes black: he lied.

 

_ Because you’re dead, you don’t see this part, but I’ll tell it anyway. _

_ A dark-haired man with pale skin rows your boat to the shore. There are no traces of inhumanity on his body. He’s drenched in water, but that can only be expected from being out at sea. _

_ As he gets close to the beach of the fishing village, he assumes a suitably hurried demeanour. Wide-eyed and worried-looking, the young man beaches your boat. A stray fisherman rushes down the sand and shells to talk to him. _

_ Potentially, he regrets that decision, when he sees your bloody remains decorating the inside of the boat.  _

_ The monster-turned-man concocts a story. It’s compelling, and the fisherman believes every word of it, but it’s certainly completely untrue. _

_ He pretends to be shipwrecked, and that by fortune, good or bad, he found your boat, and your sad remains within it. The fisherman’s eyes are wide, and his pallor rivals that of your killer. He doesn’t even think to question the guitar that the dark-haired man holds like a lifeline. _

_ Weaving a desperate tale, the man is ushered into the village, and fussed over by all manner of retired fishers and old market-women. He’s given a place to stay - perhaps even your old rooms - and told to make himself feel welcome. _

_ Oh, and he does. The villagers applaud his music, dazzled by it no matter how mundane the song is. He stays there for far longer than any human will live, until his interest is piqued by something else - perhaps the urban city calls - and he leaves, and it’s like he was never there. _

_ But, when he finds a spare moment, he peers into the ocean. He stares at his skin, the borrowed vitality of it, and stretches. His joints crack, and he frowns at the sound. His reflection smiles a shark’s smile, with teeth made of pearls. _

**Author's Note:**

> i don't even know where the second part of this story came from, but it felt necessary. hope you enjoyed, and have a good day!
> 
> you can find me at screechfoxes on tumblr!


End file.
